BPM37093 - diamond planet

I am just curious as to how this happens.

I was watching modern marvels:carbon and they mentioned the star designated as BPM37093. It is apparently entirely diamond. According to the history channel it is 4000km across and comes in at 10 billion trillion-trillion carats. They said it's also a measly 50 lightyears away from Earth.

I know this is what happens to a white dwarf and this is the course that our sun would take. I was more interested to see if anybody can pull pictures for this. Seeing as how my computer is down I cant get the pictures I would like. I can however, view pictures from ATS for some reason. Any help please?

A2D

reply to post by Agree2Disagree


You wont see much beyond a dot.

wet.physics.iastate.edu...

*sigh*

figures. Why can't we get better images!! Sometimes I wish there was a way just to blast me out into space without getting fried by all the radiation...or suffocating.

Thanks anyways.

Also, how EXACTLY does this happen? I mean, i get the gist of it, white dwarf crystallizes, but why does it make diamond? Are all white dwarfs carbon based then? diamond IS crystallized carbon right? Or am I an idiot?

Im sure if it where closer it would be destroyed to keep the blood diamonds flowing. It cements the myth that diamonds are rare. There are places in Africa where diamonds can be picked up by hand yet they cost a fortune is a joke.

reply to post by On the level
Not only that but nowadays it can be manufactured, and the quality is much better. Dead people into diamonds

It always makes me laugh when they say a diamond is forever even though people aren't.

Hmmm something is telling me DeBeers has its sights on this planet...

Watch out!

I want it.

reply to post by superdebz


They can make artificial diamonds here on Earth - so I'd say look at the technique for making those. They all pretty much revolve around huge pressures bit like real Diamonds (here on Earth are made)... Sometimes it's explosions, some times it's insanely powerful machine pressure. - So would a white dwarf be a star that has blown of most of it's matter providing the shock and pressure to crystallise?

Or maybe the pressures were there all along, just cooling occurred and the bonds between the carbon atoms became highly regular...

I half watched a program on making diamonds - they did speculate on a type of Asteroid where the Diamond formed in a vacuum....

saw a program the other day called super diamonds. while this was not mentioned. the type of diamond it is was. it is not a shiny big clear one like from within our earth.

as it was made in a vacuum and limited gravity. it is mostly black and has potted holes, and is made up of millions of individual diamonds.

it will actually look something like this:


A black diamond.

also check this out:

leisureguy.wordpress.com...

diamonds are amazingly prolific, its just they dont get up here much, the surface that is. In places where vulcanism and or erosion have brought them near the surface they are pretty common, its only transparent ones that are so valuable.
Industrial diamonds make up most of what is mined.
There are several ways to make diamonds as was mentioned and one method is so good only debeers can tell them apart. And they arent telling anyone how they do it.

Originally posted by star in a jar
reply to post by On the level
Not only that but nowadays it can be manufactured, and the quality is much better. Dead people into diamonds

It always makes me laugh when they say a diamond is forever even though people aren't.

Hmmm something is telling me DeBeers has its sights on this planet...

Watch out!

holy crap
i cant believe someone cap up with that as a business

its brilliant, kinda morbid but brilliant

Originally posted by punkinworks
There are several ways to make diamonds as was mentioned and one method is so good only debeers can tell them apart. And they arent telling anyone how they do it.

Well that program I saw did show you one way (although it was not 100% fool proof... I think like a random 30% man made ones would still get through).

Basically it was simple - you get the diamond (just the diamond - not mounted or anything) and a very strong magnet, he was able to make it twitch and turn with the magnet because of the mineral content...

Could be worth remembering!